The Travel Corporation Announces Carbon Neutrality by 2030

The Travel Corporation (TTC) and its family of brands have announced a five-step Climate Action Plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.

The five points include:

1. Measure – Measure the emissions from our business and trips.

2. Reduce – Build on reduction efforts and set ambitious reduction targets by mid-2022.

3. Remove – Through our TreadRight Foundation, invest in new technology and nature-based solutions to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.

4. Offset – Purchase carbon credits to offset unavoidable emissions, including phasing in carbon neutral trips between 2022 and 2030.

5. Evolve – Continue to learn from others, invest in new technologies and support strategic alliances that enable us and the industry to move to a low carbon economy.

To support the transition to a low-carbon future, TTC and its TreadRight Foundation are investing in two nature-based carbon removal solutions, Project Vesta and GreenWave.

TreadRight has also launched a new Impact Hub in an effort to be transparent as to progress made at TTC and its family of brands against the groups’ 11 sustainability goals, while also providing tips to travelers on how they can help.

TTC’s Climate Action Plan addresses Goals #1 and #2 of its five-year sustainability strategy, “How We Tread Right,” which target the carbon footprint of its business. The goals commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and to sourcing 50% of electricity from renewable sources across the organization by 2025. This includes TTC’s 20 offices, 18 Red Carnation Hotels, 13 Uniworld ships, six accommodations/facilities, more than 500 vehicles, and itineraries operated worldwide by its brands including Contiki, Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and Uniworld.

“There is much debate as to the right approach when it comes to decarbonizing travel and tourism, and our position is that this must be a process that begins now and commits to evolving as the solutions continue to improve and become available to us,” said Brett Tollman, Chief Executive of The Travel Corporation. 

Since the launch of its first sustainability strategy in 2015, TTC has invested in energy conservation and reducing its environmental impact across its portfolio of brands. This new Climate Action Plan builds on TTC’s progress, including the installation of solar panels in 2020 at the Uniworld head office in Encino, California, the implementation of a 400kW Tesla plant supplying over 95% of Xigera Safari Lodge’s energy.

Looking forward, TTC has committed to carbon neutral offices and business travel beginning Jan. 1, 2022, through its partnership with offset provider South Pole. Contiki will move a step ahead to become a completely carbon neutral business, meaning unavoidable emissions from all trips departing as of Jan. 1, 2022 will be offset going forward.